at Christmas they are there too, with 600 copies, in a film that is also melancholy – Corriere.it

A film (even) melancholy? Why not, say Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo. With The big day the three are with us again at the Christmas holidays, same copies as once upon a time, 600, same director, Massimo Venier, same distributor, Medusa who releases it on the 22nd. And the managing director Giampaolo Letta hopes to slip into the interstices of the blockbuster: “If Avatar allows us to earn something…”. Veterans of chaste and slightly vintage good humour. Away with nudity and vulgarity, as always. But also via the goblin-wide gestures, the “faces”. Yet, 31 years into their partnership, there’s still performance anxiety. Giacomo: «My legs already make me Giacomo Giacomo, you never know how we will be perceived. We defeat the habit by extending the times of the reunions, each of us does other things ». Giovanni: «The future is uncertain, we try to plan for the present, so we don’t think about it». Aldo: «When we see each other, a spark always arises».

The title is
The big day
, and it is the one that celebrates the marriage between the daughter of Giovanni and Lucia Muscino, with the son of Giacomo and Antonella Attili. However, Lucia (defined by her in spite of her «Vintage Barbie», «surely she’s a bit heavy», she rightly comments) is her ex-wife. At the wedding she shows up with Aldo, her new partner. Giacomo and Giovanni in the film as in life have known each other forever, they are partners, they deal with furnishings. The marriage of the children is the seal of their friendship, they want it like a fairytale, on Lake Como, fireworks, sings Francesco Renga, starred chefs. Aldo wreaks havoc with gaffes, and we’re on the comic side. Underneath winds malaise. The melancholy chapter, in a story centered on the family, aging parents and growing children, should be handled with caution: this too causes anxiety with the Christmas takings.

The fall of illusions, the disenchantment, the betrayals, everything ends: but other doors open. “They find each other the moment they say goodbye, and thanks to that they will have a happy life,” adds Venier. He starts from ideas offered by the lives of the trio, for example from what Giovanni said at the (real) wedding of his daughter, «I mentioned Mulanthe cartoon, when the father says crying that my little girl is grown up». «My character doesn’t see a painful sense of the life that belongs to me», says Antonella Attili, new entry, who says, «actors bore me, on the set they were never self-celebrating, Giovanni always talked about botany…».